{"id":427,"date":"2017-02-09T05:53:54","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T05:53:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/?p=427"},"modified":"2017-02-14T00:19:57","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T00:19:57","slug":"is-postmodernism-a-catch-all-dead-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/2017\/02\/09\/is-postmodernism-a-catch-all-dead-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Postmodernism a catch-all dead end?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Postmodernism has been at the center of discussion in\u00a0two of my classes this semester, and its elusive nature begs the question of whether or not postmodernism encapsulates all other movements of history and of those to come. In the most basic sense, postmodernism means to question everything: to not accept grand statements just because they come from authorities, to decenter ourselves from the very truths around which we revolve. Maybe it&#8217;s my own naivet\u00e9, but living in a postmodern world has made me question whether or not any authority can, or should, be accepted from here on out.<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0<em>Recreational Terror,\u00a0<\/em>Pinedo says that postmodernism encapsulates &#8220;a profound loss of faith in master narratives,&#8221; and &#8220;the breakdown of moral clarities.&#8221; In a world in which things are less certain than ever, in which indeterminacy reigns, it seems unlikely that a bold, new narrative will be able to unite our trains of thought once again. The second law of thermodynamics states that things will only ever get more complicated, that entropy is always increasing. In other words, once a plate breaks, it is very unlikely that the laws of physics will make that plate fall back into place, and postmodernism seems to have broken the plate.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 378px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/b\/b9\/MagrittePipe.jpg\" width=\"378\" height=\"264\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ren\u00e9 Magritte, The Treachery of Images. Wikipedia. 1928-29. Oil on Canvas. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Treachery_of_Images\" class=\"autohyperlink\">en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Treachery_of_Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The image above\u00a0was introduced to me the first time I heard of postmodernism way back in my days as a freshman in high school. The caption translates into &#8220;This is not a pipe,&#8221; and the knee-jerk reaction is to disagree. The artist&#8217;s point, however, is that this is not in fact a pipe, it is merely the image of one. \u00a0All in all, in a world that has taught us to not accept anything and that more or less has taught us that our own interpretation is valid as long as we have the evidence and logic to back it up. So, in a world in which master narratives are meant to be thrown out, how can a new one be established?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Postmodernism has been at the center of discussion in\u00a0two of my classes this semester, and its elusive nature begs the question of whether or not postmodernism encapsulates all other movements of history and of those to come. In the most basic sense, postmodernism means to question everything: to not accept grand statements just because they &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/2017\/02\/09\/is-postmodernism-a-catch-all-dead-end\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Is Postmodernism a catch-all dead end?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-c"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":484,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions\/484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}